A view of strategy, procurement, warships, navies, and world politics. please note its all my work - information may come from elsewhere, and certainly the pictures do, but the analysis is mine, so any flak about it; address it to me, any praise likewise.
I have no problem with defending by debate or being corrected when I am wrong. I hope to someday get some of the ideas published, so any feed back will be of great and most profound assistance.

Monday, 15 April 2013

April 2013 Notes: French Defence Cuts

I feel I should start off by appologising, I really do try to blog - but I get so busy doing longer works that I often forget to post things here; and things I do write for here end up going elsewhere... anyway, lately I have been on occassion writing some 'notes', and I thought when I have a few stored up I would start loading them up online - I hope their of use.

French
Defence Cuts; effects on the Royal Navy, and the wider British Armed
Forces/Strategic situation

By
going the Sylver VLS/Aster missile system route, we have tied ourselves to
the European...mainly French missile research/production, that means any
cuts in that then we are left on our own funding research - when the whole
point of going into an alliance was to pool the cost.

The
MBDA was supposed to make the Sylver a capable land attack/anti-ship
system...without it the only option under development is the son of
tomahawk/son of Harpoon, both of which are orientated on the MK41 VLS...
i.e. the only chance of making the Type 45s have a land attack capability
greater than that provided by their main gun is more than likely going to
be delayed and cancelled eventually, or cancelled out right.

under
the SDSR/concordant we have agreed to pool our Trident maintenance
program, this is not going to be unaffected by this decision; in fact all
the money we planned on saving we could end up having to spend to keep
open a French facility employing French workers.

Procurement

·A400M Transport aircraft… if the French decide to cancel or delay the
procurement of this then the cost for the UK will go up, this is pointed out in
the article, but the article misses that for the British this had been a leap
of faith getting this type of aircraft from Europe, as the Hercules and Galaxy
fleets testify to the RAF is more often equipped with American made transport
aircraft… rather than paying the increase cost, it might be an option to cut
our losses and instead increase these fleets of aircraft.

Long Term Strategic

Carriers
– space aboard Charles De Gaulle to provide for training of RN pilots in
operations from carriers, was a key plank of the concordant, and is
important the speed of regeneration of the RN’s own carrier capability in
the future…whilst the USN should still make places available as agreed,
without the extra spaces offered by the French it will off course slow it
down. The fact is most like the integrated carrier strike group will most
likely be a lot less integrated and a lot less common than envisaged.

Escorts
– the French are being relied upon at the moment to provide those extra
escorts (along with the Americans) for task groups when we need them, the
American’s cannot be expected to fill the gap and the other European
nations are either themselves cutting or do not have the escorts of the
required type/level of capability to be useful… putting us in a position
of weakness we would not have been in had the full number of Type 45s been
built and the Greeks not been sold 3 Type 23s, that we now need and they can’t
afford to operate properly.

Research;
especially in the areas of Satellite Communications and Unmanned Air
Systems, all of which are at critical junctures at the moment, funding if
cut by the French, if its wished to keep them on track,

Short Term Strategic

Asia –
the French do supply support troops in Afghanistan, this logistical
element may not seem significant… but if its contribution has to be filled
by British and American troops and short notice, after recent cuts there
is not much slack available.

Africa
– the French are a key intelligence source for northern Africa, and their
deployments of legion units around the Sahara, as well as their
commitments to the anti-piracy operations of the coast of Somalia are
important contributors to stability in the region… loss of their escorts
off Somalia and reduction in troop presence could destabilise the fragile
peace of the post-Arab spring states; as well as calling upon resources
that post-SDSR are already limited.

Middle
East – Syria is still in the middle of a civil war, Iran is always ready
for trouble, the French might not always be reliable allies, but they were
burden sharers and at the least might have been able to provide support,
maybe even combat troops for an intervention should that become necessary.

Conclusion: how big are the consequences for the UK?

·Potentially
massive, whatever the scale of the cuts there will be an effect… whatever the
effect is though it will be cumulative, it will be felt in different ways short
term and long term depending upon the severity of the cuts.

·Worst case: Britain is going to be forced to spend a lot of money,
buying a transport plane no one else wants, buying more escorts to make up the
shortfall, retrofitting existing escorts with Mk41 VLS to enable them to carry
a modern land attack/anti-ship missile system, as well as buying SM-3
ABMs/SM-6s rather than take on development of the Aster alone and will have
five years added on to the time it takes to get the carrier operational, and
the Ocean/Illustrious/Argus
replacement program becomes even more important… Britain is forced by having to
secure its own strategic position/necessities itself to become the major
military power in Europe, and more than likely with America’s
withdrawal/”Re-Balancing” from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the major Atlantic
power.

·Best case: France does a minimal cut, the other European nations also do
a minimal cut and whilst Britain has to provide more money into research than
it was expecting the programs are not significantly delayed and the other
nations still bare some of the burden. We have to order an extra batch of Type
26s and manage to still get some spaces upon French Carrier operations to
supplement those provided by the USN.

·Likely scenario: hopefully something in between… but only time will
tell, and with the French focus on nuclear power stations, combined with their
Eurozone integration, their requirement for armed forces thereforecould be argued to perhaps come down to one
more of national pride than perhaps of national necessity, making the worst
case scenario more likely.

The 2 November 2010 Downing
Street declaration[4]
by President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Cameron. The elements of this
declaration are as follows.

Defence and
Security Cooperation Treaty

The purpose of this is to
develop co-operation between British and French Armed Forces, the sharing and
pooling of materials and equipment including through mutual interdependence,
the building of joint facilities, mutual access to each other’s defence
markets, and industrial and technological co-operation.

Nuclear
Stockpile Stewardship

Collaboration on the
technology associated with nuclear stockpile stewardship in support of both
countries independent nuclear deterrent capabilities, including a new joint
facility at Valduc in France that will model performance of nuclear warheads
and materials to ensure long-term viability, security and safety – this will be
supported by a joint Technology Development Centre at Aldermaston in the UK.

Operational
Matters

It was decided to sign a
Letter of Intent, creating a new framework for exchanges between UK and French
Armed Forces on operational matters.

Industry and
Armaments

It was decided to direct the
UK-France High Level Working Group to strengthen its work on industrial and
armament cooperation.

Operations
and training

Combined Joint Expeditionary Force

It was decided to develop a
Combined Joint Expeditionary Force suitable for a wide range of scenarios, up
to and including high intensity operations. It will involve all three armed
Services: there will be a land component composed of formations at national
brigade level, maritime and air components with their associated Headquarters,
and logistics and support functions. It will not involve standing forces but
will be available at notice for bilateral, NATO, European Union, United Nations
or other operations. It will begin with combined air and land exercises during
2011 and will develop the concept before the next UK-France Summit and progress
towards full capability in subsequent years. The Force is intended to stimulate
greater interoperability and coherence in military doctrine, training and
equipment requirements.

Aircraft carriers

The UK had earlier announced
that it had decided to install catapults and arresting gear to its future
operational aircraft carrier, creating opportunities for UK and French aircraft
to operate off carriers from both countries. Building primarily on maritime
task group co-operation around the French carrier Charles de Gaulle, the
UK and France will aim to have, by the early 2020s, the ability to deploy a
UK-French integrated carrier strike group incorporating assets owned by both
countries. This is to ensure that the Royal Navy and the French Navy will work
in the closest co-ordination.

Equipment
and capabilities

They agreed cooperation in the
following areas.

A400M support and training.

Submarine technologies and systems

Maritime mine countermeasures

Satellite communications

Air to air refuelling and passenger air
transport

Unmanned air systems

A 10 year strategic plan for the British
and French Complex Weapons sector.

Research and technology

To continue with their significant R&T
co-operation, devoting an annual budget of €50m each to shared research
and development, with the aim of increasing this where possible.

To focus on a set of 10 priority areas
that will include time critical research support to satellite
communications, unmanned systems, naval systems and complex weapons.
including new areas of critical industrial importance such as sensors,
electronic warfare technologies, and materials, as well as novel areas
such as simulation and a jointly funded PhD programme.

Cyber security. France and the UK agreed a
framework which will govern their enhanced co-operation in this area,
leading to strengthened individual and common resilience.